Electrophoretic large volume sample stacking for sensitive determination of the anti-microbial agent pentamidine in rat plasma for pharmacological studies.

A sensitive capillary electrophoretic method with on-line sample preconcentration by large volume sample stacking has been developed for determination of the anti-microbial agent pentamidine. The separation is performed in a fused silica capillary coated with covalently bound hydroxypropyl cellulose, with an internal diameter of 50 μm and length of 31.5 cm; the background electrolyte was 100 mM acetic acid/Tris at pH 4.7. The stacking is tested using a model sample of 1 μM pentamidine dissolved in 25% infusion solution and 75% acidified acetonitrile. Stacking permits the injection of a sample zone with a length of 95% of the total capillary length to achieve an enhancing factor of 77 compared to low injection into 1.8% of the total capillary length, with simultaneous high separation efficiency of approximately 1 350 000 plates/m. Stacking is based on simultaneous application of a separation field and a hydrodynamic pressure to force the acetonitrile zone out of the capillary. This approach allows the determination of pentamidine in rat blood plasma using only 12.5 μL of plasma treated by the addition of acetonitrile in a ratio of 1:3 v/v. The attained LOD is 0.03 μM and the intra-day repeatability is 0.1% for the migration time and 1.0% for the peak area at the injection 28.3% of capillary length. The performed pharmacokinetic study with ten-second scanning of the blood reveals rapid dynamics of pentamidine in the arterial bloodstream, while the changes are much slower in the venous system.